Radiologists: The Unsuspecting Subject Matter Experts

A mass-casualty situation with hundreds of patients would require the immediate assistance of all available medical providers. Radiologists are primed and positioned to take the lead in ensuring preparedness of their local hospital and community, through emergency planning for a radiologic incident, given their combined medical and radiation physics knowledge. Therefore, increasing the skills of radiologists first is the more prudent approach in such planning. This preparation can be done through understanding of the critical components of such scenarios: the threat, types of radiation incidents, contamination, detection, decontamination, and acute radiation syndrome and its treatment. Once the necessary knowledge supplementation has been completed, radiologists can participate in educating their fellow medical colleagues and health care staff, and assist in the radiation-related aspects of an “all hazards” emergency department response, decreasing “radiophobia” in the process.